Understanding Outdoor Moving Head Lights

Imagine a party with no moving lights, it definitely sucks. Yeah, dancing in the dark is fun but having those lights of diverse colors move around is way more fun. Any concert would be incomplete without them as they are the special ingredient that enlivens any party. This is why Color Imagination has compiled a list showing the best-LED moving head light for your club, gig, event, or party.

Moving head lights, also known as movers, are of two main groups; moving mirrors and moving head.
1.Moving Mirror: These moving lights work from a static position; where the beam is focused. They come in a variety of colors and patterns and are equipped with a shoot-out front lens on a mirror which moves left-right and up-down. Unlike the moving heads, the beam is focused on a particular position thus it cannot shine everywhere. Moving mirrors move pretty fast and can be hung in any position. The head can also be rotated to fit in any concert.
2.Moving Head: Members of this category are usually egg-shaped containing a lamp and numerous motors which control the look of the beam. They move left and right, up and down in such a way that the light beam spreads virtually everywhere, of course not behind the chassis.

There exist two other categories of moving head lights beside the aforementioned groups. These are; wash lights and profiles. Wash lights movers come with a broad beam which provides a wash of color across the stage. Profiles, on the other hand, are used to project patterns with sharp focus. Some shows use a mixture of wash and profile lights.

Features of Moving Lights

These DJ headlights are usually controlled by specialized software built into special hardware devices and are arranged in a building block fashion. Generally, they share lots of features irrespective of the category they fall in. Therefore, we will take a look at their features together.

1. Body Build: They possess a dimension of 400 x 500 x 700 mm, and a fairly lightweight between 30 – 50 kg. Also, they rotate at an average speed of 1500 – 2000 BTU per hour and draw about 16 amps at 120v.

2. Light Source: Movers usually contain either an HMI (Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide) or HID (high-intensity discharge) light source complemented by an arc lamp which is way more efficient than incandescent lamps. However, LED (Light emitting diode) is the most efficient of them all, although their application in profile movers is limited but LED moving head lights tops the chart still.

3.Intensity: The quantity of visible light emitted by HID and HMI lamps cannot be controlled; they are either ‘on’ or ‘off’. Thus, controlling the intensity of these DJ movers would require the use of a mechanical dimmer.

4.Color: Moving light colors are taken out subtractively through diverse possible methods but a general method is the use of graduated color flags of magenta, cyan, and yellow that provide the desired unlimited range of colors. As seen in events, colors can be cross-faded through any time-frame.

5.Inputs: the two inputs required by any moving light are data and power. Often times, data is the conventional DMX-512 which makes use of 5-pin XLR connectors and the power input is usually 100-230v.

Top 15 LED Moving Head Lights

Moving head manufacturers have made buying one easy as they provide diverse movers with different specs and prices. At Color Imagination we give you the best movers to light up any party;

QWash 150Z

IP3500

MagicDot 240F

QSpot 150

QBeam 150

ProBeam191

Lezdom 360F

MagicSpot 240F

Crazy 4

ProSpot 600CF

MiniWash 159

MadPanel 2510F

Led Wash

MiniZoom 740FP

FlyEye 1916F